Owners Smash iPhones To Get Upgrades, Says Insurance Company

markass530 writes "An iPhone insurance carrier says that four in six claims are suspicious, and is worse when a new model appears on the market. 'Supercover Insurance is alleging that many iPhone owners are deliberately smashing their devices and filing false claims in order to upgrade to the latest model. The gadget insurance company told Sky News Sunday that it saw a 50-percent rise in claims during the month Apple launched the latest version, the iPhone 3GS.'"

Comments

original article

[sl0ppy]

how about linking to the original article instead of a blog entry attempting to get page views by copying chunks of the article?

Re:Umm....duh?

[Moryath]

AT&T makes money off forced "upgrading."

I had a flip-phone model. Had it die on me (internal speaker died, would only work in speakerphone mode). Called in my warranty, got the "replacement"... it's a SLIDE-phone instead of flip (meaning the screen is unprotected).

Called them up, turns out they have a clause in the contract to ship back whatever the fuck phone it is they can with "similar features" if yours is out of production... and the lines go "out of production" every 6 months.

Where do they make the money? Constantly changing accessories. Car charger? Bam. No good. Extra house charger I kept at work? Bam. No good. Belt clip? Bam, no good. Thank god I hadn't bought the "proprietary" handsfree set too.

$100 worth of accessories, down the tube, "not covered" simply because they ship a different model phone incompatible with the accessories you bought right along with the damn phone in the first place.

Re:how is this different

[gandhi_2]

this is best done with a 9v (et al.) battery and some wires...randomly touching every contact interface. Looks fine on the outside, the ICs just fry.

Re:It's covered in the contract

[Sandbags]

i have insurance for ALL device on my person carte of a rider on my homeowners insurance. There's a $100 deductible (per incident, not per device), and it covers loss, theft, accidental, and incidental damage. It covers me, my wife, anything in our cars, and anything a 3rd party has on them while they're with us so long as they're "staying with us" for the night. (for example, and this was the specific example they gave: my parents come to stay for the holidays, and we go out to dinner. While out, seeing a movie, my car is broken into and Dad's camera and laptop are stolen. HIS stuff is covered by my insurance. Same goes if we're mugged. If I drop his DSLR trying to take a picture, also covered).

It costs me about $45 a year for this rider on my policy. it has a $10,000 per incident coverage, and $25,000 annual maximum. (default is much less, but I'll regularly travel with 2 laptops, a media device, a few phones, and several cameras, so i could easily have 10K worth of gear in my car).

This is an extension of the electronics rider on the policy, which bumped my home electronics coverage from $5k to 25K of covered items, which itself cost about $14 a year more, and I added the accidental/incidental clause for a bit more. (note to all you with homeowners insurance, the default electronics and appliance coverage likely does not even cover your fridge, washer, dryer, water heater, AC, heater, etc, let alone your TV, stereo, computers, devices, and more. Without this rider, those each need to be itemized with your insurer, or if you burn down or take a bad lightning strike, you'll be left holding the bag for the difference! Talk to your insurer and make you everything is not only covered, but covered for COMPERABLE OR BETTER REPLACEMENT, most only covers depreciated value, which is worthless! Talk to your insurer and make sure you have an electronics rider!!!)

I buy warranties on most devices, and always pay for at least $10 of the device using my Visa card as well (even when financed otherwise), so I get the additional 1 year warranty extension from them. However, the additional coverage for loss and damage is WELL worth it. I regularly get devices replaced within the 3-5 year terms. In fact, I've not bought a printer/fax in nearly 10 years thanks to BestBuy, but i get a new one about every 18-24 months and buy a new $29 warranty on it.

I've had 2 cases where I used the insurance. One time I was bumped at a trade show, and destroyed a several hundred dollar lens on my camera, filed a report and had the cash in a few days. The other time, my was a car wreck that destroyed a laptop. I've never used it for "malicious" purposes, but I did get IN WRITING from my provider that I was in fact covered for "fits of anger" though i was cautioned that frequent use of that clause could get my insurance dropped. However, since I'm using home insurance on 2 houses, 2 cars, multiple rider policies, and some additional coverage, all from the same company, odds are the near $3500 a year I pay them is keeping them happy enough to replace a few minor devices if I chose to.